


Tales of Unwasted Love

by archea2



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Childhood Memories, Cozes, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Humor, M/M, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: A series of Benvolio-centric vignettes, celebrating everyone's favourite coz.Initially posted as fills for a certain anon meme. Gen/friendship in chapter 1, gets shippier (Benvolio/Mercutio) in chapter 2.  Chapter 1 contains one consensual spanking (Mercutio does like to stand in for Romeo).





	1. Chapter 1

_"Don't waste your love on somebody who does not value it."_

 (Wrongly-not-wrongly ascribed by the Internet to _Romeo and Juliet_ )

 

**Getting Drunk for the First Time**

"Good coz, hush your brawl."

The inn, technically, is neutral territory - as are the Duomo and two-thirds of the main street. Still. The two gents at the corner table, with their fancy spurs and chic hooded cloaks draped across their collar-bones, scream Capulet.

"She's my JULE, she's my JEWEL, she's my Lady of MISRULE," Romeo hollers, and Benvolio smiles feebly to the intrigued crowd. "Get-thee-a-wife night," he says. Most of them nod, but Chic Cloak 1 leans forward with “Pray name the lucky bride” in a voice nothing short of sepulchral.

" ‘Tis a SECRET!" Romeo yells, one hand dive-bombing for his cup. Benvelio snatches it and holds it out of his reach. Holy Maria. Of all the sack newbies to party with...

"No more wine?" Romeo asks, his poet's eyes brimming up, which of course is when Mercutio snaps his fingers for the host and calls, "Grain spirit, then! We must have Romeo dance!"

"No we don't!" Benvolio bleats, horrified.

Romeo stands up; sways; flings his arms wide open, his face split horizontally by a benign grin. He looks rather adorable, but, sad to say, he's also back to rhyming. "Thou beautiful BRUNETTE, thy absence has me FRET, but I raise my POSSET, to all the C..."

"The CORONETS! The CORONETS! Long live our beloved prince and princess!" Benvolio roars, one hand on his coz's mouth - still mumbling doggerel to his palm - while the other leaps to his hip. Already, Cloak 2 is reaching under his folds, and not for his purse, forsooth. The gesture has Mercurio switch to full prick-and-beat-down swing, and in the corner of his eye, Benvolio can see the host motion wildly to a few patrons to help him take the Venetian glass down.

"Next time, you're marrying ME," he yells into the sacked-out fiancé’s ear, and promptly dives for his sword.

 

**Fairy Tales**

Mercutio in a bodice is nothing new. Mercutio in a pearl-studded bodice with wings strapped to it, a gold turban, a padded farthingale and platform clogs with pearls at their tips is something else. Benvolio sighs.

"Queen Mab, forsooth. And he saw not the trick on't?"

"Good Benvolio, he was drunk on his own tears. Thus I: Get thee to the Capulet ball. And he: Can't, for my lady mother hath sent away the horse, lest my father be tempted to horsecrash the party. So I pulled out my mighty wand" - Benvolio closes his eyes, bracing himself for a codpiece joke, but only feels something tickling his nose - " _id est_ , this giant dandelion, and said, Then fetch me a big tall bumpkin..."

"This bumpkin hath art enough to clip thee one!"

"...so he can convey us to the ball and your Rosaline. And there we are. Marry, but my wings itch." Mercutio twists and turns in his vain endeavours to reach under his shoulderplate, watched by Benvolio until the latter relents, sighs (bis) and lends a helping hand. The night is still young, and their watch has been idle so far. But as midnight strikes itself in, a slender shadow clad in a tailored domino cape jogs across the scene and leaps over the Capulets' garden wall, yelling "JULIET IS THE SUN!"  - and dropping something in his haste.

Benvolio's "Coz?" runs into Mercutio's " _Juliet?_ " as the latter jumps to his clogs. Not quick enough, though: Tybalt, hot in pursuit, has already picked up the shoe.

"O single-soled jest," Mercutio curses under his breath. "My nimblest dancing shoe, too. I lent him the pair!"

They both watch, as Tybalt turns the incriminating sole this way and that for inspection, its audience appeal steadily growing as more Capulets reconvene. Dark rumours rise, of a search party and a mandatory order for every Montague to bare their left foot and... "If the shoe fits," Tybalt says, his tones darkest, "let him wear it!"

" 'Tis a match," Mercutio exults from the shadows, and blows him a kiss.

Benvolio sighs (ter). Od's little life, but his life is a tale told by _two_ idiots.

 

**Consensual spanking**

Mercutio finds him in the orchard, sitting under a fine silver birch, his head in his hands. "Ah," he says, crouching down on his heels. "I trow the rod was mentioned."

Benvolio nods into his palms. "As a last resort, ay. Mine uncle fears he is well past rhubarb and hellebore."

"Ay, ay, nothing like a good whipping to cheer up young Innamorato. But why the long face? Thy breeches are safe enow, man; unless thou didst volunteer to raise his spirits by dropping them."

"Mine uncle said 'twere well 'twere done soundly," comes the glum answer, "and then mine aunt...'"

"Cried uncle, by Jesu, and forbade him to stir an arm." Mercutio looks the tree up and down, and Benvolio can see the cogs and whirrs dance in his brain, until his friend throws his head back and unlashes his mirth. "What, and sent thee in his stead?"

" 'Tis no laughing matter!"

"Indeed, thou lookst the saddest bastinado-er that ever cut a switch. Out with it, sirrah! Hast done the deed yet?"

"How can I?" Benvolio blurts out. Here is sweet Romeo, his sibling of choice, with whom Benvolio never traded a word that was not gentle; and there is Benvolio, on a mission to horse the greensick lad o'er a chair, pull his silks and velvets down and lay down the birch on those young, round, sensitive cheeks he only ever treated to a loving pat. His aunt expects him to use the rod lovingly, but a rod is a rod is a rod, and while Benvolio never fell a prey to melancholia, he did not 'scape a whipping or two in his boyhood, and, Od's little life, they _hurt_.

"Hmmmm," says Mercutio, while the wind plays with the birch leaves above their heads, raising a very disquieting whistle. Mercutio answers it in kind, a light up in his eyes. "Do the deed to me."

" _What?_ "

"Then canst thou return, and say i'truth thou didst chastise a wicked boy. Marry, what's a little arse-roasting between friends? 'Twill stir my mad blood delightfully. Here." And Mercutio, leaping to his toes, breaks a thin branch and pushes it between his friend's stunned fingers. "The leaves will muffle the pain of it and season the pleasure. Come, sirrah! Or shall I spank myself, as Sancho Panza was once ordered to?"

"Ye want me to -"

"Or I can ask Tybalt. Yet I would rather not - he'd prove the very butcher of a silk butt!"

This is so ridiculous that Benvolio hiccups a chuckle, right before he picks up the branch. There is Mercutio, that outrageous comforter, baring his nether moons as Benvolio has seen him do countless times in jest, and here is the branch, translated to a soft whistle, courting that well-curved rump. Once, twice. The leaves do spread out the heat, but Mercutio's cheeks pinken and jolt a little under the light flagellation.

"Ah, the immortal passado!" comes his next gay cry, as the birch does, indeed, thrust forward. "The - hai! _Hai!_ "

Benvolio laughs, all torment forgotten, and lets the branch kiss those witty curves again.

 

**Aftercare**

 

If _Hai_ is Mercutiese for  _more_ , Benvolio thinks, then _Tut, man_ will have to do as Benvlang for  _There is a time for sparing the rod and the time is NIGH_. Least said, soonest healed.

He drops the branch to the ground and waits. Pat on cue, Mercutio takes a long, hitchy breath and his hands to his well-chafed rump. Shuffles his feet as he massages his moons - first cautiously, then more firmly, only to find that, ay, there's the rub: skin to skin massage does nothing to soothe the rash. Of course, being Mercutio, he only legs it quicker, turning the shuffle into a minuet.

 _What, art thou hurt?_ Benvolio nearly quips, but the verb is enough to spur him too. One hand on his friend's shoulder, the other reaches for the bottle of calendula oil. Bless his aunt's heart - though 'tis not young Romeo's too, too tender flesh shall feel the balm.

"O," says Mercutio - his relief more salient than he may have intended. A quaver's rest; followed by an audible quaver as Mercutio lets himself be guided down onto the grass. "Soft, soft, Benvolio - prithee."

Benvolio strokes the sharp (upper) cheek and the sweat-prickled neck. "Shhhh. 'Twas a good deed thou didst."

"Spoken like a cognoscenti. Now get you to your aunt's chamber, tell her the deed is done." (Yet Benvolio loiters; spreads another trickle of oil across the stoic rump, if only to assuage his guilt.) "But first..."

"Whatsoever thou wilt."

Mercutio fidgets under the gentle palm; raises his head from his arms' cradle for a frolic wink. "...the Good Book enjoins thee to pour oil _and_ wine upon a wounded man, sirrah."

 

**Found Families**

From age 8, Benvolio has been an only child. Ask the good folks of Verona why, and you can bet your guts and gizzard half of them will answer "murder most Capulet", while the other half shrugs "Eh". A child's death is quickly mourned in Verona, where even toddlers are warned against ring-a-ring-a-roses, because you never know what the next ragazzo might have in _his_ breech pocket.

But Benvolio's little brother died of the winter cough, and their mother was gone before the spring. At nine, his heart swelled by loss, he still had to toe the childhood line. He held his pillow in his sleep and, when his lord father would not let him keep a dormouse for fear of the plague, picked up a stone on his next walk. So far, so Montague. But his governor blinked a little upon finding the stone on a little chair in Benvolio's bedroom, cleaned up and baptized Petrus. Benvolio nursed it for a year.

Now the year is gone, and his father is marrying again (courtesy of Prince Escalus' strict wed-or-get-out repopulation policy); rounding Benvolio's circle of orphanhood. The feast is bright - a day of sun and merrymaking, only two casualties between the altar and the banquet hall. Benvolio sits at the high table, uneasy in his brocade clothes. The whole hall is bright with gold and the shoulder-clink of glass to glass, no sound that isn't glad...

But hark. Wait. Is this...

Leaning down, he lifts a stiff flap of embroidered cloth to peer under the table.

A mop of dark hair perks up above two very young, very not-glad eyes. There is a polite sniffle.

"How now," Benvolio whispers. "Art thou lost?"

A resolute shake of the head.

"Ah. A recluse, perchance?" Benvolio smiles at the tentative crease in the round cheek. "Shalt pray for my soul if I give you some of these comfits?"

The last word has the recluse brighten up, only for his mouth corners to drop again and a tear to plop its way down to the marble floor.

"Father said..."

"Aye?"

"Father said I am to learn the long words."

"...Ah," says Benvolio, at a loss. (Rhetoric? At his age? Surely...) Then takes a closer look at the speaker. Six at best, the Sundayest clothes in the room, a lord father with a strict agenda... "Art thou Romeo?" More pieces fall to a whole at the child’s nod. "Shhh. Hush thy tears, sweetling. Thy father only wants the best for thee, but if thou likest not the longsword, then shall I plead with him to give it time. How dost like _this_?"

Romeo smiles.

"Good," Benvolio laughs, and seals a promise to his heart. "Now, how about that comfit? And a little daylight? If I fetch thy kinsmen, wilt thou -”

But Romeo only clasps his arms round Benvolio's knees, rubbing his cheek to them, and the touch - the full, warm, live touch, the first in years to prise the dark squeeze of mourning from him - has Benvolio falter his next words. His short, impulsive words.

"Aye. Aye, well enow, if thou wilt. Little coz."

 

**Bad Role Model**

 

The next time Benvolio sets eyes on his little coz is when the latter is officially breeched and decreed of reasonable age. Technically, Romeo is still short of seven - not to mention short tout court - but the Lord Montague is nothing if not impetuous.

Which means more pomp and circumstance (though Benvolio's new, no-nonsense stepmother insists that he go in last month's brocade) and a parade of roasted swans with their feathers reattached to them in no particular order. The young lord is still in his chambers, he is told; being entertained until the time proper for his apparition. Benvolio bows here, bows there, bows himself out.

He expects to find the child half suffocated with chambermaids and etiquette coaches, but there's only one other boy with him. The boy is somewhat older, which makes him three-quarters Benvolio's age. Hair a Titian red, eyes goldbrown and merry.

"...and then," the boy is saying, "comes the back curtsy."

"The back curtsy?"

"Ay! Of highest import, for 'tis the very top knot of courtesy. Look, and I shall demonstrate." The boy makes a pirouette and claps his heels. "Thou be the company, and I be Romeo. See, the company is _awefully_ noble, and 'twould be a lack of respect to greet it eye to eye. When I am come, thus do I turn" (the imp turns his back to Romeo) "and bend forward - thus - low, _very_ low, mind ye..."

"O," marvels Romeo, and that’s Benvolio's cue to cough. Not low at all.

"I'truth, last year's etiquette," says he, while the imp pivots back gracefully, not one whit out of composure. "Thy front will do just as well, little lord."

"Benvolio!" Romeo cries out, bursting into smiles, and trots up with his arms open.

Benvolio completes the embrace, fresh-laundered ruff be damned, and turns to young Master Misrule.

"Mercutio Guertio," the imp says, with a frank, devastating grin, and Benvolio finds his stern rebuke melting on his lips. "Will this year's sugar-plums agree with you? I have a picklock to the pantry."

Benvolio opens his mouth; meets Romeo's pleading eye.

"Lead the way," he says, because there's a time for Montague-brand reason and a time for Mercutio-brand whimsy, and, now as ever, Benvolio's heart times his choice for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick warning that this chapter gets, um. Much shippier in the Benvolio and Mercutio department.

**Saying Sorry**

 

"Your Highness", Benvolio says, a wannabe gracious hail. His bow is faultless, but his nose is currently out of joint; consequently, his words sound like _Y're Hideous_. G_ddamnit, Tybalt.

"I pray you, sit." (Prince Escalus has been called worse by about every other Prince of the nearby cities.) "And ere you speak anew, Benvolio: not your fault."

Benvolio breathes at large, or rather tries too. It comes out a little hissy, but relief settles over him as he takes a seat.

"Tybalt, I fear me, will not join us. Yet did I exact his presence by proxy, by which I mean an apology." Benvolio, a courteous courtier, tries not to look doubtful. “ 'Tis here, still sealed. Pray open it."

The wax is broken; the parchment unfolded. The Prince takes a breath for two.

 _APOLOGY_ leaps at their face in thick, raging Gothic letters. Tybalt alone, it appears, missed the cultural turn to the Humanistic script. The rest of the page is blank, until they come to the very bottom and read _on Adam's behalf for that he ate the apple, on Noah's for that he freed the crow, on the people of Babel’s on obvious count, and on thine for missing my too-quick sword, thou wormy apple, black-hearted crow and BIG TOWERING COWARD_. There are a few more splutters of ink that neither can quite parse: Tybalt's quill must have been quite splenetic.

Benvolio doesn't sigh, because Tybalts will be Tybalts, and hate Benvolios along with hell and peace. Prince Escalus' shoulders droop a tad, poor man, before he braces them again.

"Next time," he says.

"Next time," Benvolio chimes in dutifully.

"And meanwhile..." Escalus clears his throat; lets his eye shift the tiniest royal bit to the side, while Benvolio stares his _Ay?_. "Meanwhile, good my liege, we should owe you much if you kept an eye on Mercutio. His sake is dear to us, and while we are loath, truly loath to impose on you -"

"Prince," Benvolio cuts him, unhesitant, uncourteous, and most uncourtierlike. But, Mercutio? " 'Tis no need to apologize."

 

**Possibly good decisions**

 

“God-a-mercy, no,” Benvolio pants, because of course this infernal cleric would be a recluse and have his cell atop a herbaceous hill. “Stop there, stop there! You know not what you do.”

“The wise-eyed owl will sing tu-whit!

When the coney gripes at his wit,” the friar muses, because, yea, he speaks in verse. Must be the herbs - very absinthy, the Veronese hills are. Benvolio tries again.

“Look you, I too would dearly love a town ceasefire. And an end to the plague. Oh, and world peace, too, why not. But I see not how ‘tis meet for my cousin to marry a wench he met _two days ago_ to bring it all about.”

“Marriage, the very first sacrament,

Can make other unions” - the cleric hiccups - “cromulent.”

“She is not fourteen!” Benvolio yells. “They’re naught but babes in the war - both of them!”

But Friar Laurence, his pupils about thrice their normal size, is scanning the hills. “O merry days!” he exclaims. “Here cometh the intended.”

Benvolio spins around, ready to launch himself and wrestle the groom - bride - bride's nurse (God forbid) back across the cell’s threshold, but only spots the grass. Deep breath. Thou canst do this, he admonishes himself. Thou didst listen to Romeo spout rhymes twelve weeks long - mealtimes included. Come on, thou. For his sweet sake, and hers.

“Reverend father, I must bow” (counting stealthily on his fingers)

“To your most wise, er, know-how.

“But ere I leave, riddle me this:

“Long betrothals make surer bliss.” (it’s a rhyme - himthinks.)

Friar Laurence tilts his head to the side.

“O,” he ponders at length.

“And secret,” Benvolio tacks on, a prosaic fellow again. “Until God hath, you know. Made straight their paths. You, a godly man, shall see to that.” And Benvolio, Romeo’s man, shall see that these babes have a bunkerized dovehouse to sing in.

“O, ay,” the friar agrees. He sits down somewhat heavily on his pallet, the herb-flavoured wine taking a toll on his feet of all sorts. “Long love… long life... provide.”

“Or I’ll be much denied,” Benvolio says softly, his gaze back to the hill.

 

**Sleeping with the Enemy**

 

“Dying? _I?_ ” says Mercutio when they raise him from the pavement and stay him with flagons, a la Song of Songs. “ ‘Tis as seasonable as snow on St. John’s Eve. Nay, my heel bested my steel. My foot turned; I fell before he could hit me, and my head struck first -  the stone. Most cruelly. I’fact, I may need another dram to -”

Prince Escalus snatches the flagon. “Not another drop. First must Romeo be unexiled by you, Sir Jack - and you, Tybalt. Why, may one ask, did _you_ drop upon your face?"

Tybalt grows very red, bleeding nose aside, and mumbles something about the Verona pavement cramping his celebrated Wrath Cut. “A slipped,” Mercutio translates gleefully.

“A did not!” (Paris’s hand flies to his rapier.)

“A did, too!”

“In more ways than one.” The Prince exhales from long-suffering nostrils; quiets his voice. “Very well, then. If you our gracious pardon crave, you will both to Mantua and bring back Romeo. Tomorrow,” he adds with princely bounty. “By stroke of noon.”

Benvolio closes his hand on the ribbons of Mercutio’s slashed sleeve and tugs him to the Prince’s stables, glaring the entire way. “Noon,” he grits out, a harsh coda. Mercutio looks up, and whatever remains on Benvolio’s face between the dried trails of salt is enough to spur him onto the horse. “God-a-mercy, Mercutio, an you give us the slip..."

“I _will_ bulge,” Mercutio says, and canters off, Tybalt hot on his hoofs. But it’s a long, long way to Mantua, and the next long hours find Romeo still MIA. Benvolio spends them cancelling masses, wakes, Dies Irae, bulk orders of daggers and black powder, when he is not answering Juliet’s frantic HATH THE LARK CHANGED EYES YET WITH THE TOAD messages. (The lark, he thinks, stands for Romeo. Or fate. Or breakfast. Juliet’s codes tend to vary according to her mood.)

But they do ride back. Mercutio hops down from the saddle first, featherlight; waits until Benvolio’s arms have let go of Romeo to wink bravely at his friend. “Well,” he says. “Let whoever will sing before breakfast; I’ll cry for bed.”

“Didst have no rest, then?” Benvolio asks, half coldly. For all that he is glad to have his fair coz back and in one piece, he never meant for his concussed BFF to ride  twice twenty-five miles posthaste. "Methinks you should have stopped for the night."

“Ay, so we did. But… ‘twas a busy inn. With nary a bed empty, quoth the host. So we, um. Commandeered his.”

This time, Benvolio merely stares.

“ ‘Twas of a _matrimoniale_ kind,” comes the airy addendum. “Thus did we lie down, he still booted, so please you, and I said, Now must I hug my kickie-wickie [little wife] good night. “

“ _Mercutio_.”

“Upon which he fetched his sword - to lie between us.”

“A right good proviso.”

“Which took a muckle of space. Still…  ‘Peace be with you,’ said I, and fell a-snoring. ”

“Thou wouldst, too.”

“Faith, I out- _cat_ erwauled him! A tried to choke my nose ‘twixt one and two, yet still gave I him my tongue, silver-sweet.” Mercutio proceeds to shake his head; grimaces, and desists. “A gave me his morning breath.”

“Amen to both your breaths,” Benvolio says, relenting at last, not least because Romeo’s pleading eyes have been travelling from one to the other for the last minute - and pulls the silver-tongued nuisance to his chest.

 

**Cross-dressing**

 

"And still I say," Benvolio says - gasps -, "your nurse's gown were a better fit. Ow!"

"Taut, taut." This from Mercutio, their self-appointed arbiter in cross-dressing elegance. "Hone me these fine shoulders into a tapering waist, do!"

Juliet pulls on the basquine laces with Juliet's customary impatience, ensuring Benvolio's best impersonation of a gaping fish. "Mercy!" he croaks. "Lady, a little air - if you would have me claim Paris at the altar."

"Fair Helen, so be it." Juliet gives an inch - and a peck at the yet un-rouged cheek. "If it be so?"

"I needs must act alone," Benvolio says firmly. Plan B involves Friar Laurence's sketchy record in safety protocols (and opioids), and Benvolio will not touch it with a ten foot maypole, let alone send his new coz-in-law on a Near Death Experience. Instead, there he is, preparing to back the monk's pious lie that Count Paris cannot make Juliet a mother because he himself is a father of three.

"Alone? Ha! Not on my life."

"Good Mercutio -"

"And if I anger thee, thy fan to my face - 'twill be good practice. Better" - Mercutio pauses to adjust the veil on Benvolio's head, his fingers warm and sure as they pat it in place - "that thou ventest in rehearsal than I ranting o'er your hearse. I shall not leave thee, friend."

Benvolio bites his lip; feels his eyes dilate with more than belladonna, right when Mercutio is stepping back at arm's length to peruse his oeuvre. Quickly, Benvolio lowers the veil over his face.

"O, loose are the ravens upon the early morning worm!"

( _Capulets here, beat it_ , Benvolio translates, making a mental note to enlighten both his cozes on the virtues of plain, practical prose.)

"Hie to the chapel!" Mercutio says gaily, presenting his fist. Benvolio blinks at it, before he recalls his present state and tops it with his palm. "An he will not have you, count me in when the Count is out."

"Go to, with thy prattle," Benvolio mutters - but, being of good will, only kicks him once on their way to the church.

 

**Eyes**

 

Go-betweening, a tricky business even in the best of circumstances, is at its trickiest in Verona.

The town rarely if ever lets out its patrician girls unsupervised; when it does, it strongly encourages them to wear a moretta, that black round mask held in place by a button which the young lady is expected to _bite on the entire time_. Making any exchange of passwords a bother, as Benvolio finds to his cost after he’s whispered A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME into five anonymous ears, only to have his boxed by a not-amused Rosaline.

“Nay, thou shalt find her by her eyes!” says Romeo, ever the optimist, and proceeds to identikit Juliet. It’s quite simple, really. All Benvolio has to do is find a girl with stars in her eye sockets. Or, if he’d rather, look up and check the sky out for Juliet’s eyes. No, really. What? Oh, green. Himthinks. Or brown. Hard to say, they are _so_ very bright. Just follow that twinkle, cousin!

Benvolio does roll his eyes upwards, but later - his message safely delivered - surprises himself with a wistful pause at his mirror. His eyes, he thinks, come from his mother’s side. Maybe. They are nothing like his father’s, forsooth, and Benvolio wishes he could ask the latter for confirmation, but there is a time to every purpose and his sire’s clock is four heirs ahead by now. He will expect his son-in-chief to look sharp, full stop. And yet…

“Good morrow, hazel eyes!” Mercutio’s voice greets him, his chin pinpointing Benvolio’s shoulder, his face and sunlit eyes laughing as he embraces his friend’s waist from behind.

And yet... O, no matter, Benvolio thinks, his heart suddenly full and merry, while he grins back in the glass.

 

**Happy endings**

 

It is five years before Prince Escalus sees the light, his lady by now passed away, and has Friar Laurence book him the anchorite’s cell next to his. The Prince’s genius, however, lies in his will. In it, he piously hands over all of his earthly goods to the two oldest houses of Verona (guess which), on the express condition that they (a) co-rule the lot, (b) through a joint venture start-up (c) respecting gender equity (d) by means of holy matrimony (e) to ensure long-term sustainability. As a matter of fact, the Prince has taken the liberty of nominating the prospective CEOs, if everybody will kindly check out provision (f).

Romeo and Juliet are rushed to the altar by the end of the week.

The day is golden with June, silvered by church bells - and, as such, takes Benvolio back, a little wistfully. He adjusts the crown of green leaves on Romeo’s curls; then pushes it back to kiss their mutinous hairline good luck, once: his heart’s send-off to Romeo’s soul. Then watches, one step behind his little coz, as Juliet’s light step rounds her transition to a bride.

“O, let the ladybird join the lamb,” Father Laurence intones because it’s a verse wedding, of _course_ it is. (Tybalt’s “I object” doesn’t make it past Capulet’s glove.)

Later on, between the collective sugar high and the dance, an arm finds his brocaded waist. “Is this not better,” Mercutio murmurs, “than his groaning for love?”

Benvolio looks over at Romeo’s mouth, tinged with blue - not from the kiss of cyanide, but the Heavenly Cerulean Blue Sauce, a fashionable atrocity made of boiled blackberries - and nods.

“And art next in line, now thy lamb is wedded and bedded?”

The night is golden with motions and transitions - the dancers loose on the grass - and Benvolio’s blood joins the pacified fray. Perhaps it’s time he moved on, too; left the good boy’s comfort zone, and took his turn at chasing a sun - or, say, a quicksilver star.

His ear is bitten, gently - sucked in between Mercutio’s ever-active lips. When it is released, he is being turned in his friend’s arms. His love for Mercutio is so ingrained, Benvolio thinks, that he missed how it grew up, too; how it turned in the grip of Mercutio’s unrelenting blend of dash, glee, mischief and excitement, keeping Benvolio lively so he could keep them all alive.

Perhaps it’s time he wore his heart with a difference. But… matrimony...

“We must have you dance,” Mercutio says, his golden eyes only half mocking, and Benvolio takes his hand, once again daring Verona to tell its youth who and how to love.


End file.
